Indra’s Drishtikona (Viewpoint)

Republic Day, Kalam, and Great Predecessors

Posted : January 26, 2005 at 11:57 am [IST]

This 56 th Republic day reminds me of a great man- the first President of India. It was in 1956, I met him in Presidency College. He had come to participate in his college function. Hardly, the present generation knows that he came from a remote village, Jiradei in Bihar. He topped the matriculation examination, which used to cover almost whole of Eastern India including Orissa. He studied for his intermediate and graduate course in Presidency College and topped. He was so simple though he was the President of India. I don’t remember to have seen black cats or any special security guards to protect him. One of his grandsons- just a kid at that time, was accompanying him-the grandfather. He visited Hindu Hostel that has a plaque in one of the room saying- ‘Here lived the first President of India”. I could ask him a question about the damaging caste system of Bihar. He laughed and said, “During our days, even Bengal had the same problem,” Pointing to one corner, he said, “There used to be separate messes for cooking food for different castes.”

I was told many anecdotes of his memory power that made him legendary. But the most important was his simplicity. When he went for giving his speech, he spoke in Bangla, and the whole place reverberated with clapping. Earlier all the Bengalese celebrities had spoken in English. Dilip Babu, the Chairman of Bidhan Nagar Municipality always used to say,” I know only two Biharis, one was Dr. Rajendra and you are the second.” Perhaps he said so as I also got educated from Presidency College. It is an unfortunate thing that the country men have forgotten him and so has the party that belongs to Nehru clan. In Bihar, perhaps hardly the new generation is made to know about him. Nothing much has been done to commemorate his memory. There is none in family, who is a celebrity. He never nourished his children that way. If you visit Patna, perhaps people will not be able to tell the location of Sadakat Asharma, which is supposed to be his memorial. How can a state that does not honour its greatest son grow and prosper?

Dr. Radhakrishnan was the next to be the President. He was equally eminent. However, thereafter, the highest post became reserved for politicians. It was only with Kalam that the post got back its respectability. He is just a commoner, and also intellectual and a scientist engineer of repute. He is a great visionary who dreams and want other countrymen to dream and see that India becomes a developed nation by 2020. It was only after his book “India 2020″ that India has realized its strength and the government started moving with that mission.

The hero of Republic Day is the President. His address on the eve is soul searching. He is deeply concerned about the most burning one of the problems of the nation-the unemployment. I get tempted to put his views and suggestions. The President had met more than 600,000 children from all parts of the country. They posed a series of questions “Will I get proper employment and be able to contribute to India, to make it a developed nation?” “It represents the aspirations and anxiety of nearly 540 million youth of our nation,” said Kalam. His views are as follows:

” An action plan for employment generation through sectors like textiles and wasteland development and infrastructure, innovative health insurance, water harvesting, a mission for recycling everything and conversion of fly-ash into a new age manure.
” An additional 76 million jobs could be created in the next five years if various schemes were taken up in the “mission mode”.
” Missions for agriculture and food processing, education and healthcare, information and communication technology, infrastructure development and self-reliance in critical technologies can lead the transformation of India into a developed nation by 2020.
” The lives of ordinary citizens can be made meaningful through bio-fuel generation, water harvesting and recycling, bamboo mission, converting fly-ash as a wealth generator and village knowledge centres..
” His recommendations if implemented have the potential to generate about 56 million direct employments during the next five years.
” If we include other employment avenues in the government and the private sector, creating 76 million jobs in the next five years looks feasible if only we take up each of these schemes in mission mode.
” The people were shifting from agriculture to manufacturing and services and “by 2020 our employment pattern should aim at 44 per cent in agriculture, 21 per cent in manufacturing and 35 per cent in service sectors.”
” There is scope for bio-fuel generation in 63 million hectares of wastelands Plants grown in 11 million hectares could yield a revenue of Rs 20,000 crore a year and provide employment to over 12 million people both for plantation and running of extraction plants.
” Full use of the generating stock of fly-ash would provide employment potential for 300,000 people and result in a business volume of over Rs 4,000 crore Fly-ash is a scientifically proved non-toxic fertiliser
” Compared to the world average of 700 kg of seed cotton per acre, India produced only 350 kg per acre.
” A training programme launched for farmers for soil characterization is necessary. Matching the cotton seed to the soil, water and fertiliser management results in more than doubling in the average seed cotton yield.
” If the citizens pay Rs 10 each per month as an insurance premium, an insurance cover should be able to provide treatment for all types of diseases including expensive open heart surgery.
” The education system must impart the spirit that “we can do it”. Rural development requires a mission mode operation. Banks have to provide hassle free loans to rural enterprises

What a great president Kalam is He is leading the nation from the front. Let us make it our century.

However, the indifference of the people to this day of national festivity hurts me deep somewhere. People take it as just one holiday to sleep. Or if it is good for going out with family, they go for picnic .Perhaps someone must take a lead to give it a shape of Puja festival- something like Ganesh Puja in Maharashtra or Durgapuja in West Bengal. It would have brought the whole nation together.

- Indra

Category: Employment/Education |